Whirl
by peanutbutterer
Summary: Sitting on the cold, hard Lantean floor, kneeling before a tenthousand yearold toilet, Elizabeth Weir tried halfheartedly to remember the last time she’d felt so utterly miserable. JohnElizabeth


A/N: I was sick when I wrote this…

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Sitting on the cold, hard Lantean floor, kneeling before a ten-thousand year-old toilet, Elizabeth Weir tried halfheartedly to remember the last time she'd felt so utterly miserable. Visions of the seventh grade and a curiously warm egg salad sandwich came to mind, and she was hit with another blinding wave of nausea. Maybe this wasn't the best subject to distract her.

_Work_, she thought stoically, willing her stomach to toughen up or just get this the hell over with. _I can think about work_. She still needed to read over the mission reports from P3X-776, meet with Peter about altering staff assignments and visit Lt. Ford in the infirmary. She had meant to do all of those things before retiring for the evening, but had instead found herself in Rodney's lab dealing with the aftermath of what he referred to as a 'little mishap.' A mishap which resulted in the destruction of both the unidentified Ancient device and the cupboard it had been hastily tossed into _after_ a game of hot-potato and _before_ it spontaneously combusted into flames. Her stomach clenched as she recalled the fire damage. Perhaps work wasn't the right topic either.

Her personal life. Now that was something she was certain would be a horribly unsettling subject – partly because, well, she didn't really _have _a personal life – but mostly because for the past few weeks she had been sleeping with her military commander. No, she corrected, that certainly wasn't it. She was screwing her military commander. Part of her (a very small part which she kept bound and gagged) wished she could claim it was something deeper, but she was mostly content with the arrangement they had silently agreed upon. It was just sex. No messy, emotional attachments – simply two consenting adults relieving the tensions of a horrendously stressful and precarious life. John would come to her room late at night, or she to his, and they would slip wordlessly into what had become routine. Falling into bed, they had sex until they were both satisfied, then he (or she) would slip silently into his (or her) clothing and back to the quarters from whence they came. It was never discussed nor even acknowledged. In fact, sometimes she wondered if it was merely an extremely vivid hallucination.

In the harsh light of day she chastised herself repeatedly for her actions, explaining point by point each and every reason that the arrangement had to stop; but in the cool dark of night she never managed to find a way to resist.

Elizabeth shook her head. For being the fearless leader of an intergalactic mission she was certainly lacking in resolve.

The door to her room opened with a barely audible hiss. _Ugh, not now. _Clutching her stomach, she tried desperately to be silent. Maybe he would just go away.

"Elizabeth?" John queried from the adjoining bedroom.

_Please go away_, she prayed. The sound of heavy footsteps drew closer and her vision became blurry.

He knocked on the bathroom door. "Elizabeth?"

Her stomach churned in blatant defiance of her clear order for it to settle. She closed her eyes and began counting, focusing on the numbers in her head.

"I know you're in here," he spoke through the thin sheet of metal that separated them. "I see your clothes on the bed." He waited a calculated moment before continuing. "I'm coming in."

_Crap_, she cringed as the bathroom door slid open. _Shit_, she cried inwardly as her nausea surged and pressure began to build in her throat.

John's boots came into her peripheral vision only seconds before her stomach heaved another portion of her dinner into the bowl in front of her.

"_Oh_, Elizabeth." She could tell he was trying not to recoil – which made her self-conscious as well as queasy. "Are you okay?"

_Obviously not_, she thought bitterly as the heaving wound down. A sarcastic, "Do I look okay?" made it out just before she was hit with another wave. It seemed that illness negatively affected her verbal filter. She made a mental note not to be around Sgt. Bates when she was feeling off, lest she tell him exactly what she thought of his annoyingly smarmy face.

"Sorry," she offered hoarsely and waved her hand feebly in his general direction, "that was supposed to be in my head."

"No, you're right," he moved to the sink and began rummaging through her things. "It was a stupid question."

She didn't have the energy to tilt her head up, let alone crane her neck to the side to see what he was doing, so she simply closed her eyes and listened to his movements. Drawers were opening and water was running.

It occurred to her that he was being rather invasive, sifting through her bathroom cabinets like that, but she couldn't muster the will to care. Nothing he would find in there could be any more disturbing than the sight of her at this moment – clad in panties and a tank top, crumpled on her bathroom floor like a pile of dirty laundry and violently emptying the contents of her stomach. She was pretty damn sure she looked like hell.

John crouched down beside her with a warm washcloth and gently wiped at the side of her face. She winced. Any lascivious thoughts he may once had for her would most certainly be gone by now, which begged the question – why was he still here?

"John," she croaked, "go away."

Instead of retreating he held a cup of water in front of her. "Here, drink this."

She managed to quirk an eyebrow without throwing off her precarious internal equilibrium. "Then will you go away?" she asked hopefully. His presence was a large wrench in the gears of her 'shrivel up and die' plan for the evening.

"We'll see," he said as he reached for her hand, prying open the fingers she didn't realize she'd balled into fists to secure the water in her grasp.

Elizabeth had just managed to bring it to her lips when her stomach lurched yet again. She lost track of the cup as she clutched the rim of the toilet, but felt cold water seep across her legs as she heaved. Obviously, one meal a day was too much for her to handle. From this point forward she planned to limit herself to a diet consisting of coffee and more coffee. That way if she ever found herself in this same situation in the future at least nothing would come up.

She felt fingers on her scalp and realized that John was on his knees beside her, holding her hair out of her face. His other hand began rubbing soothing circles on her lower back.

Okay, she conceded, maybe he could stay. But only for a little while.

A few minutes later her breathing evened and she felt her abdominal muscles begin to relax. She shifted her weight and braced herself against the wall. Before she even had the chance to attempt it on her own, John pulled her to a standing position and wrapped his arm around her waist for support.

"Sink," she whispered and he guided her over, leaning her against the counter. He backed away tentatively at her confirming nod that she could hold her own weight.

As she brushed her teeth he found a spare towel and began to clean up the water she had spilled on the floor. The whole scene felt oddly domestic and Elizabeth was surprised to find it unpredictably comfortable. Visions of her mother removing her pearls at the vanity while her father unfastened his tie flashed through her mind – and they unsettled her. That scenario had nothing to do with her current predicament and she couldn't quite pinpoint why her brain had gone there. The idea of John as a husband was laughable for numerous reasons, not the least of which were the fact that she wasn't convinced he'd matured past the adolescent age of twelve, that he was as stubborn as a mule, and that he was more infuriating than anyone she had ever met.

Forcing those jumbled thoughts aside, Elizabeth made her way into the bedroom on wobbly legs. She collapsed onto the mattress, suddenly overwhelmed with chills, and tugged her blankets up over her shoulders before wrapping her arms tightly around her chest in a vain attempt to control her shivering. As John came into the room she burrowed deeper into her bed and tried not to correlate his presence to the increased rumbling in her stomach.

She forced a weak smile as he stepped up beside her. "Not exactly what you had in mind when you came here tonight," she supplied.

"No," he admitted, "not exactly." He perched on the edge of the bed and pressed a tentative kiss to her forehead. Now he was really scaring her. If he could just make up his mind, she thought, life would be a million times easier. He needed to decide if he was an impulsive, reckless flyboy or if he was a mature, thoughtful leader. And he needed to do it now – this was too much for her to handle.

As his face pulled away, she saw his eyes darkened with worry. "You're burning up."

"That's funny, because I feel like an icicle." Her teeth chattered as if to accentuate her point.

She watched curiously as John kicked off his boots and slipped out of his pants.

"Turn over," he instructed, lifting the blankets and sliding in beside her. She hesitated a moment, but ultimately complied. He pressed himself against her back and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his body just as a chill swept through her. She was ashamed to admit she wasn't entirely sure if her body's reaction was a result of her illness.

God, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to choose flyboy or leader – sensitive and considerate partner was not one of the options.

She schooled her voice to sound calm and even. "John, you're not obligated to stay. I'll be fine."

He responded by tangling his leg with hers and pulling her in tighter before placing a gentle kiss on the back of her neck. "Just relax, Elizabeth. I've got you."

It felt good – shamefully, devilishly good – to be wrapped up in him, to break the boundaries of their carefully forged treaty, to have someone take her into his arms and hold her. She allowed herself a few selfish moments of simple, unadulterated contentedness before permitting the anxiety to take over. As her eyes closed out the faint strands of moonlight she worried about tomorrow and about how they would deal with the ramifications of these actions. She worried about the complications that would result from being emotionally involved with her subordinate. She worried about the effect it would have on the expedition. But most of all, she worried that she would never let him touch her again – _could_ never let him touch her again – because now he had touched her for the first time.


End file.
